Mid-class break for posting

Ciao everyone, for you, just like me, today is Monday, meaning back to the grind. I know Megan started college today and congrats to her on that front, and in an oddly symmetrical happening, I started with my new classes today as well. I had to get up early today to get going, since we had to be there half an hour before normal, so if they started at nine, like mine do, then it's 8:30. With a 40 minute walk, we had to leave at 7:50, meaning I had to get up at 7. That may not sound early to a lot of you, but it's early for over here, especially since it's tough to go to bed anything before 11.

But yes, I got up with everyone else who had to go (aka 4 of my apartment mates) and we rolled out to class, taking in that beautiful and incredibly welcomed fall sunshine. You know the type: that faintly warm sunshine in the otherwise relatively brisk air of the morning; it really reminded me of Portland in many ways. The walk, as always, was gorgeous, and I will never feel bad about the scenery I pass by on the way, however long it may make my walk.

But yes, I got there and got all my books, but the fees were relatively high for the courses I was in, a few hundred euro, but that's ok. I got into my first class, which was Medieval Roman Art and Architecture. The professor is a mid-fiftees Italian woman with a pretty thick (yet understandable) accent who seemingly knows just about every piece of Middle Ages artwork in the whole country, let alone Roma. She seems very interesting and the class couldn't be more cool in terms of the perspective I'm going to get from it; we have site visits once a week to different churches and places, which our lab fees cover. But with this class, we get to see two things of a highly cool nature: one is the day-long trip we take in November to a city outside the walls of Rome to see a bunch of really antiquated art and architecture in their non-touristy setting. Awesome. But the best, most amazing part of this class is that through months of prior planning and arrangement, our class and our class alone gets to descend under the Vatican City to the ancient Mausoleum and see St. Peter's Tomb (yes, the Patron Saint of Rome and the 1st Pope).

This, my friends, is a highly difficult tour to obtain. It's not open for tourists, and the only way you can get in is to petition the Roman government and the Vatican for an education-oriented tour or be a Catholic priest of some rank. It takes MONTHS to plan this, and we get to go. And that is just among the reasons I am taking my art requirement over here; go ahead, try and tell me I can take a class like this in America. You just can't, and I am beyond excited to go there. That's Monday, the 10th of November, too, so mark that on your calendars I suppose.

My second class today was from 11:30 to 1:30 and was Culture and Identity in Italy. The professor is an American by birth, but has lived for only a few years ever in the U.S; he spent 10 years at Oxford and has lived in Rome for the past 20 years in a farm community outside of Rome, which we get to go visit at some point. It's really a pretty awesome class, and he sounds just intelligent like you wouldn't believe. Friendly, funny, and wicked smart, you can just tell the type, and I can't wait for this class to really get going.  Did you know that Italy only became a unified coutry 130 years ago? It was a bunch of little countries that were not affiliated really in the least before then, and so as a class we'll study how Italy functions as a whole and regional differences, conflicts, stereotypes, prejudices, and everything in between. We study Communism vs. Fascism here in Italy and all the way down the line to food and eating and fashion. I really think I'll learn more about Italy here than you ever could in America. You have to do an Ethnography project here for the class too where you map out a place around here and talk about it in relation to another place of different economic standing. Should be pretty cool to see the contrast.

Then, between 1:30 and 4:30, I have no class, but at 4:30 I do, and I have to leave here pretty soon for it. It's Science and Religion in Italian history. The professor is a priest, too, so I can't wait to see how that goes. I did some shopping over this break I just had (and it did not close today, thank goodness) and I am just prepped to head back to class. Woohoo. Wish me luck and have a great Monday, I'll post tomorrow about this coming class and my Italian class, and Wednesday I have a site visit already, so probably that will mean pictures (yay?)

And that's about it. I hope you all have a great Monday, and I'll talk to you all soon. Until next time,

Ciao.